An example would be if you’re listening to a video, you can’t understand it while trying to understand a conversation with a friend. Are we like a computer with just one core?
In: Biology
We listen to more than one thing all the time. When you listen to a song you hear the guitars the bass the drums the voice everything at once and understand it as a whole. You can further focus deeper on one element but in order to do that you need to blur the other elements. But you do infact listen to multiple things at once
We can hear and process two things at once but it’s typically switching from one to the other rapidly. This is how humans multitask. Many people think of multitasking as simultaneous progression however you break the task into micro steps (or steps) and after each step switch tasks.
I break an egg, load the toaster, grab the spatula, start the toaster, flip the egg, grab toast, crack an egg, butter toast. It’s all finished step by step. Listening is afaik the exact same I’m listening for one word then another word or word set from two sources my memory completes the sentence and my brain processes. That said I can be having a 1 on 1 convo and forget what’s said mid sentence. Still somewhat useful of an ability isn’t generally necessary.
If two people are talking, your brain does not receive two different sounds.
Sound is a pressure wave in the air (or some other substance). All sounds in the air mix together to form a collection of waves. Your ear has hairs that react to different frequencies of the pressure waves and your brain gets a signal from each activated hair.
So if two people are talking your brain gets a ton of sound signals, some from each person talking. The frequencies overlap. Your brain has to figure out which sounds come from each speaker (plus filtering out other sounds).
Your brain is amazingly good at this, but it is very difficult to do as more sounds are added.
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